Traffic nightmare continues in Gurgaon, city police asks people coming from Delhi to stay away.
Highlights
- Gurgaon police asks people from Delhi to stay away to avoid jams
- Delhi-Gurgaon highway, other nearby roads blocked due to water-logging
- Schools in city have been advised to close down
The two-day traffic nightmare in Millennium city Gurgaon following heavy rains finally got over late on Friday evening.
The jams, which on some roads had stretched for 15 km, eased after prohibitory orders - which bans large gatherings and is usually reserved for troubled areas - was imposed on a key crossing for several hours. Late in the evening, the prohibitory orders were lifted after the situation on the roads normalised.
Since Thursday evening, cars were stranded or crawling on miles of highway. Many were forced to abandon their vehicles after petrol ran out and walk home.
In the morning, the Gurgaon police had advised people in Delhi to stay away and schools shut for two days. But that did little to ease the situation.
As visuals emerged of cars in bumper to bumper traffic on the highway, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari ordered the national highways chief to send a team of officials to clear up the roads and report back.
A commuter told NDTV that he reached home early this morning, 12 hours after he left office yesterday.
Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar had to cancel plans for a chopper survey of the mess because of bad weather.
The abandoned cars on the roadside worsened the situation in some areas, said police officers.
Gurgaon's police chief Navdeep Wirk was seen riding a bicycle to the blocked areas."Quicker to reach New York from Delhi than Delhi-Gurgaon, BJP and Khattar government destroying Gurgaon as India's global hub," tweeted Congress leader Randeep Surjewala.
More rain this morning meant that reprieve could still be a few more hours away in the city known for its luxurious high-rises.
The Gurgaon police tweeted that flooding at a major crossing called the "Hero Honda Chowk" had blocked the highway and many roads in the area.Many were stuck on the road till after midnight on Thursday because of the jams on the highway between Delhi and Gurgaon and other roads nearby.
On Twitter, comments derided the millennium city as "Guru-jam" and "the world's biggest parking lot".
Images on social media showed long snaking jams and people sitting on the roads, outside their cars. Buses, cars and other vehicles were seen submerged in water.
Road traffic from Delhi to Rajasthan and Maharashtra was severely hit.